It was 25 years ago. Activists, Social Workers, Peasants, Adivasis from all over India gathered to protest Destructive Development. The very ground on which they marched was to be one more Ruin of Development.

Medha Patkar Speech at Harsud Rally

Harsud is now under water. But from here, Medha gave the call for opposing Destructive Development. She noted that People's Organisations all states had come to support the People from the Narmada

Swami Agnivesh had bought with him soil sent by the people of Indonesia who were also fighting against a dam there. In his speech he spoke about how the new development is taking over our rights to their seed, poisoning the earth with chemicals and impoverishing the peasants.

Harsud - After the Rally: Even after the Main Rally, People went around Harsud town and the areas that were to be submerged, protesting against the dam and celebrating their togetherness

".. the dam is still being built, the development debate morphs to climate change and green growth. It is going to be politics of continual contestation, with one side using its money power to ensure its increasing hegemony over the land, its people, and its knowledge. The other while continuing actions like "occupy" will need to continue making resilient societies, and economies that can withstand / be a counter to the dominant. Each one of us are fighting in our own silos. Even the rainbow politics have a 'we 'and 'they' element about it.

We invite you to join this SLOW KNOWLEDGESpace.

While most sites ask you to speed up information,we wish to Slow It Down. As Samdong Rinpoche what you get is data, which you need to contemplate, relate to your universe of beliefs, and act on it for it to become knowledge.

Localisation is not only about going back to traditional structure. There is this new movement emerging particularly in the industrialised world consciously, shortening the distance between production and consumption. These shorter distances, bring with them a multitude of benefits.

Structurally, in the local food movement, when a farmer sells to a market closer to home, the economic pressure is to diversify, to produce more than just one mono-crop. Such practices do not lead to this drone-line global economy, where we cant see who we are killing, or what we are poisoning, what we are polluting. The shorter distances are necessary to rebuild ecological sustainability - fundamentally ecological to have more localised economy. It is also about rebuilding, that experience of interdependence, that is fundamental to all spiritual teachings.

We really are talking about this urgent need for real decentralisation of power. -- Helena Norberg-Hodge, Opening remarks at the third Economics of Happiness Conference held at Bangalore March 14-16, 2014, For Full text of Helena's click read more below...

The nation is halfway through the elections to the parliament and most parties have ignored the legitimate concerns of labour, except to chorus the need for `labour reforms' or `flexible labour markets'. It is time to remember the on going struggle of the workers at Maruti's `fastest car producing facility in the world at Manesar for their right to organise and strive for human working conditions and just wages'.